Welcome Aboard
Elon and Donald are on a boat... splash, splash again!
2025
"Elon and Donald are on a boat, one falls overboard, who's left?"
Welcome Aboard questions our relationship to representation in the era of generative artificial intelligence by exploiting the moderation flaws of the first public version of GROK (deployed in December 2023 on platform X). This AI, developed by xAI and integrated into Premium accounts on former Twitter, initially presented fewer restrictions than its competitors, allowing the generation of images of public figures.
The project subverts the narrative structure by using the popular nursery rhyme as a starting prompt (text) to create a series of "fake" visuals showing Trump and Musk in various shipwreck situations. These images transform the children's joke into a political allegory: the two figures navigate makeshift vessels in distress, a metaphor for an American democracy that is "taking on water."
In this technical contradiction: the tool made available by Musk on his platform generates, through its own algorithms, critical representations of its creator and his political ally, revealing the blind spots of editorial control in generative systems. This temporary flaw, quickly corrected by xAI teams, illustrates the tensions between creative freedom and algorithmic moderation.
